Elodie dug through the crate of glass tubes the bot had attached to its front until she located the bright yellow cylinder labeled Propofol.She stared at the large grid of boxy receptacles and flashing lights until she located the row of tubes for the eleventh floor and the flashing yellow rectangle.She rolled the glasscylinder of medicine between her hands before reaching up and exchanging the empty tube for the full one.Afew mechanical clicks and the yellow light ceasedflashing.
Elodie’s heartbeat ticked up a notch as she made her way back to the elevator.Yes, she was nervous about PatientNinety-Two’s state when she got back to her unit, but tremors of excited anticipation ran beneath the anxiety.
Maybe she would see the ELU employee and his curly, dark mohawk again.Whoever hewas.
The elevator opened and Elodie requested her floor.She clenched her fists by her sides in an attempt to regain control of her nerves as the metal box carried her back to the unknowns of her own unit and PatientNinety-two.What would she do if Aubrey was still awake, crying, pleading for her mother?
The doors opened and Elodie stepped into theLTCU.
Aubrey’s door was open, her room empty, and the unit ablaze with violet.
XIII
Lieutenant Commander Sparkman raced down thefifteenth-
floorcorridor.Her knuckles drained of color as she gripped the gurney’s metal sides and braced herself.Her decades of military training hadn’t prepared her for this,couldn’t haveprepared her for this.They had nearly arrived at the lab.Its gleaming metal doors were only two turns ahead.Two hundred paces to the first turn, seventy to the second, and a final one hundred and fifty to the lab.Four hundred and twenty paces until they reached the place where all of this had begun.It was the only place Sparkman could hope to fix what they had done—what theDoctorhaddone.
The gurney jerked to the right and then left.Sparkman’s strawberry blond braid slapped her cheek and her fingers cramped as she took the first turn and the gurney careened into thewall.
Aubrey Masters was waking up.Again.
Sparkman grunted as she regained control and guided the gurney away from the wall and the small dent and gray streak that would, no doubt, be fixed by the end of the day.Instinctively, Sparkman glanced over her shoulder.No one would come running.The Doctor would make sure ofthat.
Sparkman’s nostrils flared as she blew out a breath.Only three hundredpaces.
She stared down at the little girl she’d been tasked to kidnap from the Long Term Care Unit.Hehad told her that it wasn’t kidnapping.It was taking back what was rightfully his.
Aubrey’s delicate features twisted and she let out a pained whine as she pulled against the plastic binding her wrists and ankles.Sparkman’s heart surged up her throat.She had seen a lot in her years as a Key Corp military officer.Humans, the depth and breadth of their capacity for cruelty, no longer amazed her.But PatientNinety-Twowas different.Aubrey was innocent.Aneight-year-old girl.A child.How could the Doctor dothis?
Aubrey’s whine grew piercing, a clarion call that rattled Sparkman’s bones.The Lieutenant Commander squeezed the metal bars until her hands ached and took inventory of the container of prefilled syringes she’d brought down with her.She’d started with five.There was only oneleft.
Aubrey’shigh-pitchedsqueal ended as suddenly as it had begun.Then, nothing.No jerking movements so powerful they sent the gurney careening and Sparkman struggling to keep up.Instead, Aubrey Masters went silent, motionless.Her expression placid and serene.
Sparkman’s braid slid down her shoulder as she, too, relaxed.She flipped it back behind her and maneuvered the gurney around the second corner.The lab was at the end of the hall.The last door on the right.One hundred and fifty pacesahead.
Aubrey’s chest lifted and her stomach puffed with air.Her small feet twitched and her tiny hands gripped the bedding as she sucked in ragged breath after ragged breath.
Adrenaline ripped through Sparkman’s veins and she took off.The one hundred and fifty paces flew beneath her and the gurney in a blur of white tile.She halted just before the entrance to the lab and squeezed her boxy frame between the gurney and the door.As she slid her cuff under the scanner and waited for the door to slide open, the hairs on the back of her neck bristled.Sheets rustled behind Sparkman, and Aubrey’s breathing changed.It now slipped out of her as smooth and easy as the ocean swept against the shore.
Sparkman pressed her fists together, cracking each of her knuckles, as she turned.Aubrey’s plastic handcuffs hung limply from the bed as she sat at the head of the gurney, knees pulled to her chest and secured by thin arms.The neck of her hospital gown sagged down around her bare shoulders and she shivered as she buried her chin against herlegs.
Sparkman’s jaw slacked and her stomach clenched as Aubrey blinked up at her.A band of violet ringed the girl’s pupils.
“Tell the Doctor,” PatientNinety-Twolifted her chin so as not to muffle her words.“Tell the Doctor they’re coming.”
The door hissed open behind Sparkman as Aubrey Masters collapsed against the gurney.
XIV
Preston Darby had gotten to Blair.Strike that.Cathhad gotten to Blair.Gotten under Blair’s skin when she said that Council Leader Darby could come after Denny.
Blair tapped the pointed toe of her pump against the corner of her desk and bit down on her fingernail.A jagged chunk tore free and she clenched it between her teeth.
Cath had been getting under Blair’s skin for more than a decade.Blair’s adoptive mother would toss out a small idea that stuck to Blair and festered and festered until she could feel it moving and breathing withinher.
He can make your life more difficult.And Denny’s.
Those two small sentences now had lives of theirown.
